So Biden offers to only go for a minimum corporate tax rate to financing his reduced infrastructure plan, and Republicans have rejected his offer already.
Senate Republicans doubt they can offer enough new spending on infrastructure to satisfy President Joe Biden's current demands, though they're weighing going higher on their offer anyway.
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), her party's lead infrastructure negotiator, is preparing to come back to the table with Biden tomorrow in the latest round of high-stakes talks that have frozen the White House's initial $4 trillion proposal on Capitol Hill. The gap between the two sides is massive at the moment — Biden and Republicans aren’t even counting the size of the bill the same way and are approximately $750 billion apart. Their differences appear nearly impossible to bridge right now, according to two GOP sources familiar with the negotiations…
Republicans are skeptical they can muster the willingness to come up significantly from their current offer of about $250 billion in new money over current spending levels on roads, bridges and other infrastructure.Biden wants at least $1 trillion over current levels — a concession from his initial proposal of more than $2 trillion in new infrastructure spending, but a pitch that Republicans still view as a “major backslide” in negotiations, one GOP source said.
Emphasis is mine.
Why do I feel that I am in Hell? Maybe because I read this inane shit:
Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) said on Thursday that his party would give the GOP about 10 days before making moves toward passing a package using budget reconciliation, an arcane process that allows certain spending bills to evade the Senate’s 60-vote requirement. Cardin described Democrats’ strategy as “going as far as we can with Republicans and not delay[ing] it beyond this work period without seeing some action.”
“At any moment it's very possible that the Republicans say, ‘Wait a minute, you’re either going to do it our way or not doing anything at all,'” Cardin said of the current fragile state of talks. “It's also possible that Democrats are going to say: ‘You do it our way, or if not we'll do it ourselves.’ I hope that's not the case.”
Oh Heaven FORBID that Democrats would go it alone on the infrastructure bill! At any moment, Republicans will see reason and come along to help. And unicorns that fart candy will come down on a rainbow and feed all hungry Americans.
Biden has come down way too much in my opinion on spending. In fact, his original offer was not enough by most estimates (remember, the price tag is really $10 trillion to fix everything we really need). Think about how fucking bad it must be for Biden to have to play this stupid game with so called “moderate” Senate Democrats? Because this is all a game.
“Moderate” Senate Democrats want the stamp of “bipartisanship” on things because it shows that a bill is “great.” COVID-19 relief was great, and no fuckin’ Republican voted for it. And I could give a list of bipartisan bills that were God awful pieces of shit.
And I love this bit of fluff from Politico:
The negotiating group is led by Capito, who is hungry for a deal, but also includes staunch fiscal conservatives like Sens. John Barrasso of Wyoming and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania. Conservatives have attacked a China competitiveness bill the Senate is currently considering as spending too much money, leading some Democrats to believe there may not be 10 Republican votes for a large spending package anyway.
What a fucking lie. If she was so wanting a deal, Capito would have come up on the pitiful spending. But she is doing McConnell’s bidding and killing time and making Biden water down a bill that no Republican will vote for. In fact, as I have repeatedly said, if fucking Joe Manchin was soooooooo great on deal making, why isn’t he working on Capito? She’s his colleague from WV. Instead, we have Capito doing the Susan Collins act.
Sorry folks, but I’m just too damn tired watching the Republicans block everything in the Democratic agenda and some dumbass Senate Democrats aiding them.